English Fairy Tales, The Cauld Lad of Hilton, sentence 16
So they took pity on the poor Brownie, and asked the nearest henwife what they should do to send it away.
Who acts: man · What happens: take, ask, do, send away · To what, where: pity, nearest henwife, henwife
This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Cauld Lad of Hilton. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.
Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher. This tree is Mova's own parse (the en model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.
The tree
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | So | so | ADV | _ | 3 took | advmod |
| 2 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 took | nsubj |
| 3 | took | take | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | pity | pity | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 took | obj |
| 5 | on | on | ADP | _ | 8 Brownie | case |
| 6 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 8 Brownie | det |
| 7 | poor | poor | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 8 Brownie | amod |
| 8 | Brownie | Brownie | PROPN | Number=Sing | 3 took | obl |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 asked | punct |
| 10 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 11 asked | cc |
| 11 | asked | ask | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 took | conj |
| 12 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 14 henwife | det |
| 13 | nearest | near | ADJ | Degree=Sup | 14 henwife | amod |
| 14 | henwife | henwife | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 asked | obj |
| 15 | what | what | PRON | PronType=Int | 18 do | obj |
| 16 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 18 do | nsubj |
| 17 | should | should | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 18 do | aux |
| 18 | do | do | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 14 henwife | acl:relcl |
| 19 | to | to | PART | _ | 20 send | mark |
| 20 | send | send | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 18 do | xcomp |
| 21 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 20 send | obj |
| 22 | away | away | ADV | _ | 20 send | advmod |
| 23 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 took | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | take | past | man | pity | on the poor Brownie | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent pity=Theme on brownie=Destination | |||
| 2 | ask speech: ask | past | man not said here | the nearest henwife | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent henwife=Recipient | ||||
| 3 | do | should | man | the nearest henwife | tree rules | ||||
| 4 | send away | to-infinitive | man not said here | henwife | away property | vn fire-10.10 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.
Text: «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (public domain in the USA). Tree: Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), the chapter read in order.
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/44/16/